Review on Galapagos 05180 Reindeer Aquarium Natural by Melissa Brown

The plastic bag with moss as packaged has a few holes (on purpose) to allow water/air to escape. and this envelope was actually, I think, mostly soiled with pond water. The package smelled pretty bad when I picked it up from the post office at my apartment, so I felt bad that it had been sitting there all day; I can't tell if it was from the moss itself or if it had something else on it after it was packaged, but I assumed it was moss. I actually thought it was a succulent terrarium, not an amphibian, so maybe I'm just new to animal care and should have expected that smell/stain of untreated moss? It arrived a week earlier than expected which was nice; I chose the "no rush/anytime" option as it was out of stock until the day I was out of town for a few days, but it actually arrived the day before I left (am day before they said it will be sent). . I was also emailed) which was a miracle because I was dealing with the smell. As for the moss itself, it seems to be mostly reindeer moss in good condition and I'm happy with the quality and think it looks great. In fact, there was a lot more of it in the box than I expected and it's in fairly large chunks, which I think is good from an aesthetic point of view and will make it easier to work with. It does have a few twigs/branches/thorns in it, but I think that's actually what you want/expect from this type of moss for most intended purposes, and it gives it some "woods" to hang on to to hold on to (I found it very easy to separate without bumping myself). Most of it was creamy, although there were gray patches that appeared to be dead/slightly rotted, although it was nothing more than what I expected from unpreserved moss. Because of the smell, I soaked it in clean water for about half an hour (and wrung/freshened several times) before using it in my terrariums. It definitely does the job of keeping the water inside and it's exactly the texture I was hoping for. It doesn't seem to smell after soaking. I think I'd probably be very happy with it and would buy it again if it was for the amphibians, but honestly I might go with some canned foods that I've avoided for a proper terrarium (mainly because of dyes; I was afraid they might things get dirty and look sticky) because of the smell/color of those things. But I'll see how it holds up over time!